Time Lord PMS
by Fayth3
Summary: The Doctor explains postregeneration mood swings to Rose. Part of the Happy!Who prompt list.


**Time Lord PMS**

_The new body would definitely take some getting used to_, Rose thought as she surreptitiously eyed the new Doctor.

He was currently bent double over the TARDIS controls, his hands deep in the heart of the great machine.

Rose had been sitting, watching him tinker, for about an hour and was growing steadily bored; although not with the view as that had grown steadily better as he'd shucked off the pin-striped jacket to reveal his pert bum.

Rose nodded in appreciation. Really that was a very nice arse. He was skinnier and lither and—she tilted her head-- _very_ flexible.

"Anything I can do?" she asked into the silence and his back stiffened.

He half-turned and she was shocked to see a look of anger cross his face, the tips of his ears glowing red, making him look oddly like a disgruntled elf.

"Well, that's the question isn't it?" His voice ranged from mid-Scotland to East London. If she weren't so surprised by his words she would have been amused by his accent.

Rose's eyebrows shot up into her hairline. "'Scuse me?"

There was danger in her voice and he could see it by the look in her eyes.

"Nothing," he replied sulkily and turned his back on her.

Oh, she so wasn't letting him get away with that! She wouldn't take that mumbled crap from Jimmy Stones and she certainly wasn't taking it from some whip-thin Time Lord with a temper tantrum.

"Well, obviously it is something if you mentioned it." Rose was angry now. Just what the hell did he mean by that?

"Nothing it's fine. Thanks for asking, you know, after I'd done everything! Typical stupid ape timing." Rose heard the muttered words perfectly.

"Oy!" she yelled. "If you needed help all you had to do was ask! I was right 'ere."

"Because you'd be able to understand the complex workings of my magnificent machine," he snorted.

"So you're mad that I didn't ask to help but there was nothing I could have done to help anyway?"

He shifted his shoulders as if he knew he was being ridiculous but couldn't quite stop himself. "No one should touch the TARDIS controls except an experienced traveller."

"You let Captain Jack," she accused.

"He was an experienced—"

"Con-man!" she interrupted. "Besides I didn't see you complaining when you sent me off in 'er back to Earth!"

"Ahh, but you didn't stay put, did you? Blundered back in, butchering the poor TARDIS." He rounded on her angrily. "Just look at the mess you made of the vortex container? What did you rip it out with? A hacksaw?"

"A JCB actually," Rose said furiously, folding her arms across her chest. "Sorry if I was too busy thinking about saving your life and not about interior decorating!" she yelled the last. "Now I'm wondering if I should've bothered!"

She turned around and stalked out of the control room, heading the wrong way once and having to make a detour back to her own room, seething inside.

Ungrateful Time Lord Schmuck. Unappreciative, double-hearted, two-faced, weird-glowing, manically-moody, manipulative, pyjama-wearing … jerk! Rose fumed.

After she'd hoisted his, frankly rather heavy although nicely formed, arse all around London and stood up for him in front of the Sycorax and almost died for him trying to get back to him and his pepper-pot pals and he repays her by flying off on one.

See if she ever saved his shiny new skin again!

And who the hell wears trainers with a suit anyway? Geek.

She huffed and folded her arms glaring at the door.

Almost on cue it knocked.

"Rose? Can I come in?"

"Bugger off and fix the vortex container," she spat.

The door handle gently turned and the sheepish face of the Doctor peered in.

"Already did."

He edged into the room, one hand shoved in his pocket and the other holding a cup of tea. She glanced at the tea and then back at him raising an eyebrow questioningly.

He shrugged one shoulder. "Peace offering." He stepped closer. "Don't throw anything at me, please?"

His beseeching look had her lips twitching in amusement. "You're such a prat."

He grinned and sat down on the bed next to her, handing over the tea.

"Peace offering to say? What?" Rose prompted.

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry."

"Good." She gave him a satisfied smile. "And an explanation would be nice too."

He looked uneasy. "I really am sorry."

"I really am waiting for some sort of reason for you having a hissy fit!"

"Hissy fit?" he looked mildly affronted. "I don't think anyone's ever said that before. Hissy fit. Hissy—what's that even mean?"

"It means," Rose said irately, "that you'll stop changing the subject and tell me what all that was in aid of."

He sighed and sagged, his shoulders drooping. "Oh, all right. Its part if the regeneration process. My people used to call it the Manifestation because it's when the new personality manifests itself by taking over the old. Then they chose regeneration because it sounds classier."

Rose poked him. "Not helping."

He scratched the back of his head. "Regeneration really takes it out of you; all the cells in your body change and the new cells trigger new hormones and electrical impulses. The imbalance can be pretty rough. One minute you feel fine and then, bam—or boom, liking the boom more than the bam, anyway, next thing you know surge of hormones and you're ranting like a lunatic. Although strictly speaking lunatics don't rant so much as dribble."

"So you're like a teenager right now? Sudden hormone burst making you a bit irrational?"

"No, it's far, far, far more complicated than that," he said, looking away.

Rose grinned. "How much more?"

"Not much more," he admitted.

"How many of these do I have to put up with?"

He sighed. "Difficult to say, new body, new hormones, new personality. You're lucky its just mood swings and I haven't tried to kill you."

Rose's eyes widened. "That was a risk?"

He realised what he'd said and groaned as she looked nervously at him. "No! No. Not really a risk as such, I wouldn't have a said a risk—more a possibility."

Rose fingered his lapel. "I want you to take me back to Cardiff when you, me and Jack were there and I'm going to go right up to and slap you really hard for not telling me about this!"

"Can't!" he said, somewhat relieved. "Time line, Reapers, consequences, can't be done."

"Lucky for you."

"Yup!"

She decided to change the subject. "So anyway, we're all right for now, no more surges?"

"I shouldn't think so. It was just the stress from the sudden materialisation. Hopefully I'm over it now."

Rose's lips twitched.

"What?" He couldn't think what she found funny about that.

She struggled to keep her face straight. "So you just had a regeneration mood swing caused by post-materialisation stress?"

He grinned. That was one way of putting it, sounded far more scientific than having a strop. "Yup."

Rose burst into giggles.

He looked at her baffled. "Why is that funny?"

"At least it's just this once, not once a month!"

"What are you—" He trailed off as her meaning came to him. His face reddened. "Oh bugger."

"Time Lord PMS!" Rose fell back, her screams of laughter echoing through the room.

"I'm never going to live this down."


End file.
